Oregon needs to adhere to science to reduce wildfire threat

It’s August in Oregon, and that means wildfire season is upon is. Unfortunately, it also means public relations firms are working overtime for logging companies to try to convince Oregonians that more clearcuts are the answer.

The reality is that fire is as much a part of our forests as wind and rain, and that fire suppression and abusive logging practices have left too much fuel and too few fire-resistant old-growth trees. Protecting homes and communities from dangerous fires, while still allowing burns to play their natural role in reducing fuels and maintaining forest health, is possible. But it will require us to change our approach.

For decades, the United States Forest Service suppressed almost all forest fires. For the most part, it still does.

This has caused fuels to build up in some forests, especially those east of the Cascades. Most of our old-growth forests were also clearcut and converted to tree “plantations,” which removed large, fire-resistant trees and replaced them with dense, spindly fire-prone stands. A warming climate, drought, and suburban sprawl spilling into forestlands only makes matters worse.

Forest restoration projects can help address fire danger. Restoration-based thinning, which focuses on dense young stands that pose the greatest fire risk, can restore old-growth, make forests more fire resilient, and provide economic opportunities.

Efforts like the Glaze Meadow thinning project near the town of Sisters have reduced fire risks while improving habitat for fish and wildlife. Under the right conditions, controlled burning can diminish fuel loads and maintain environmental health while lessening the risk of unnaturally severe fires.

Unfortunately, the USFS is under constant pressure from logging interests to divert efforts to projects that target older, more profitable trees in the backcountry, rather than focusing on the dense young stands near communities.

Then, once the logging is done, these projects are often abandoned, leaving follow-up work like controlled burns unfinished. The backlog of forests that need prescribed fire grows every year, but since these crucial next steps don’t make money for logging companies, politicians and political appointees have little interest in them.

The result: Dense young trees quickly spring up, and logging supposedly done to reduce fire-risk ends up contributing to it.

If we are to reduce the threat of wildfires to communities, there are effective steps we can take:

* Focus fuel reduction projects and fire suppression in the immediate vicinity of homes and communities,

* In the backcountry, focus on ecological restoration. Prescribed fire can do restoration more effectively than logging with less damage to the land

* Avoid logging in fire-adapted old growth and mature forests

* Encourage homeowners to “firewise” their property by keeping trees and shrubs pruned away from buildings, and to use fire-resistant building materials

A century of reckless logging, development and fire suppression created our current problems. It is silly to think more of the same will change anything. It is time to listen to the science and focus on what works, not on what logging interests would like Oregon to believe.

Steve Pedery is the conservation director of Oregon Wild, which was established in 1974 and works to protect Oregon's wildlands, wildlife, and waters for future generations. He can be reached at sp@oregonwild.org.